Top 5 innovations

[Milfred Cubicle]

Just for fun...
In a world of 'next big thing' innovations, what are your top 5 innovations for off road riding? Mine, no particular order.

1. Disc brakes
2. Suspension forks
3. Spd pedals
4. 29er wheels
5. Indexed gears.

There are lots of others, but these are the ones I would say have had the biggest influence on my riding.

[DropperPost]

The answer is context-dependent, e.g. if you're a downhill racer, you probably couldn't care less about gearing but will put a high value on beefy, long-travel suspension. A cross-country racer would have a much different set of priorities.

So I'll preface my list by saying that I like to do a bit of everything, with a bias towards downhill, techy trails, but I also like to ride from my home to the local trails, which involves a lot of roads and tarmac.

1. Dropper post.
2. A front derailleur. Not an innovation, but I'm mentioning it as it's almost impossible to find on new mtbs, but has some huge advantages over 1x systems. One of the key advantages is the ability to have a wide gear range, but still use a wider (e.g. 7-speed) and therefore much more durable chain.
3. Hydraulic disc brakes
4. Quality front suspension forks, including a lock-out lever and a decent modern damper, air spring and rebound adjustment.
5. Good quality flat pedals, paired up with decent flat shoes.

[Nearholmer]

I’ve been riding off-road since 1991, when I bought a hybrid which was good for it, but always what amounts to rough-stuff, or ‘gravel’ as it is now practised in England, rather than anything death-defying, and aside from a period using an ally-carbon CX bike for it, I’ve always used 700c, rigid, steel-framed bikes, and the tyres never got significantly beyond 40mm.

So, the first point I would make is that no innovation in that period has been totally revolutionary, everything I do now, I could do then (to some degree more so, because I was a lot younger!), and in fact I’ve recently recommissioned a 1988 26” wheel MTB, a type of bike I viewed at the time as being for kids, so never bothered with, and that more or less does the job too, although the wheels are bit small . The innovations have made things incrementally better.

However, the innovations I most value are, in descending order:

- tubeless tyres, which make things a lot less bumpy, so allow either higher speed on the same roughness, or bumpier ground at the same speed, and offer far better grip, which is useful in multiple ways;

- better brakes, with vees being better than cantis, and hydraulic discs best of all readily available systems (drums might serve me better, if decent ones were available);

- on-phone mapping, because navigating bridleways, byways etc using paper OS maps could become a right faff at times, requiring frequent pauses to peer-closely, chosen routes which disappeared onto the next sheet, maps dissolving in the rain, etc.

- snappier gear shifting, especially where it’s integrated into a brifter, because a fully integrated set-up with hydraulic brakes on drop bars makes the bike “part of your body”, so tiny do the finger movements become.

- wider range gearing at the back, because 3x I found then, and still do now, forces changes at the front, and compensatory changes at the back, at crucial moments when you’d really rather not. Having tried 1x, I know Im happiest with 2x and a 16T difference, which I then use as “1x twice”.

- farm cafes (actually, maybe these should be higher up the list), which now seem “ten a penny” and are a boon, but I don’t recall existing at all when I started.

[Cowsham]

1. Hydraulic disc brakes
2. Through axles
3. Aluminum frame
4. Beeline
5. Safety bicycle.

[cyclop]

Disc brakes ,front suspension,rear suspension,lock out,ever more lighter bikes overall .Having just had a serious accident ,I,m not including clipless pedals.

[fatmac]

I've ridden all sorts of bikes off road, what was known as 'rough stuff', from 20" folders to the original mountain bike, but mostly just ordinary tourers.

Improvements in braking technology has been the biggest asset.

[Cowsham]

.Having just had a serious accident ,I,m not including clipless pedals.

What happened?

[pjclinch]

Just for fun...
In a world of 'next big thing' innovations, what are your top 5 innovations for off road riding? Mine, no particular order.

1. Disc brakes
2. Suspension forks
3. Spd pedals
4. 29er wheels
5. Indexed gears.

There are lots of others, but these are the ones I would say have had the biggest influence on my riding.

Of the above, indexed gears maybe but not any of the others.

I like discs, particularly hydraulic and wouldn't buy an off-roader without them these days, but Vs (even cantis) work okay and I replaced my V-brake MTB because replacing the worn-out transmission would cost more than the bike was worth, not because I was having braking difficulty.

Suspension forks, well my first MTB didn't have them and I did okay, and my recent off-road tourer doesn't have them, and I do okay. If I were into downhill daring then yes, but I do pretty tame stuff to be honest and am okay without.

SPuDs I like but with so many people riding on studded flats with sticky shoe soles these days it's clear you can easily do lots of serious stuff without them.

I'm not fussed about 29ers, and my current MTB is 27.5" but the only reason I stopped using 26 is you can't get them any more. Bigger rolls better, but turns worse: you choose, you lose... My off-road tourer has 29ers and is great for the job I have it for, but as someone who gets around town on a Moulton I find it's a bit of a barge!

No, the biggest innovation by far in off-road cycling is tyres designed specifically for it, wide, running at lower pressures and with deep tread.

Pete.

[pjclinch]

Improvementss in braking technology has been the biggest asset.

Yes, but the introduction of alloy rims probably had the biggest step effect here, and that's cycling in general rather than off-road.

The difference between so-so Weinman side-pulls on wet alloy rims compared to the same brakes on wet steel rims is IMHO more useful than the difference between V-brakes and hydraulic discs. The former is cake, the latter is icing.

Pete.

[rareposter]

Lights: decent quality off-road capable lights opened up a whole world of riding opportunities

GPS (and Strava): finding your way around a forestry block or a dense set of woodland trails without constantly stopping to check maps, being able to easily check out trail directions and popular areas has enabled much easier and more rewarding exploration.

1x: quicker simpler gear shifting, virtually zero risk of a dropped chain, better mud and tyre clearance and the lack of front mech opens up far more design possibilities for full suspension and e-bike frames in particular. Win all round.

Hydraulic disc brakes: should be standard on all bikes and the sooner that cable disc brakes die off, the better.

Final one - not sure, a toss up between suspension, dropper post, decent quality properly wide tyres, tubeless... Hmmm. Impossible to choose!

[Cowsham]

1. Hydraulic disc brakes
2. Through axles
3. Aluminum frame
4. Beeline
5. Safety bicycle
5. Good quality LED lighting ( after seeing rareposters post )

[Milfred Cubicle]

Ha ha...some interesting ones in there, but some common choices too.
I never considered lights...they have gone up exponentially in lumens but static on relative price. Interesting.

GPS/Garmin...I wouldn't even consider, but I have never felt the need, so maybe I'm missing a revelation

It would be fun to make some sort of electronic poll, find the concensus, then build a bike to those choices. It would end up as the perfect machine, or a hideous Frankenbike!

[531colin]

SPD boots
Paramo clothing

[hamster]

1. Shimano Freehub: bombproof hubs without bent or broken axles
2. Hydraulic brakes (Magura Rim or disc)
3. Decent aluminium box section rims: which you couldn't fold up - Mavic 217 for example
4. TIG welded frames: brought decent light MTB frames to the masses
5. Indexed HG gears: yes I know it's a marginal one, and I'm still using thumbshifters!

Much of the rest is pseudo-innovation at best.
A bike isn't a semiconductor device that improves at Moore's Law pace, and as a result a lot of pointless fluff emerges such as insane levels of sprockets (7 is enough IMV) and most of such innovations come at the expense of durability and serviceability - internal cabling being particularly egregious.

[Nearholmer]

I guess that what you count as an innovation depends on when you started. For instance, non-collapsing alloy rims I don’t count as an innovation, because they were there from the start in my case.

I also think we all have a “stop” point with the onward march of bike tech too, or at least many people seem to have, a point where neo-phobia, or the comfort of the familiar, trumps cool appraisal of whether the next thing is actually useful or not.